


Sins of the Saint

by fullyajar



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: (sort of), Action/Adventure, Anti-Christian themes, F/F, Feels, Magic, New Year's Eve, New Year's Resolutions, Pixies, Romantic Angst, Romantic Fluff, and, at the very least, of the humorous kind
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-13
Updated: 2016-01-13
Packaged: 2018-05-12 06:48:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5656564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fullyajar/pseuds/fullyajar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This was not the New Year’s Eve Carmilla had in mind. But hey, she supposes taking on a reincarnated pre-Gregorian grumpy holy man that stole the New Year’s Eve fireworks from the local pixie population can’t be much worse than being stuck in a supernatural cellar with your ex when the ball drops… right?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sins of the Saint

**Author's Note:**

> _Those who prefer their principles over their happiness, they refuse to be happy outside of the conditions they seem to have attached to their happiness._ \- Albert Camus, (Notebooks, 1935-1951) as quoted in Carmilla (Season 2, Episode 12)
> 
> Thank you for the prompt, laurahhollis! It’s not all fluff/crack. Mostly it’s a bittersweet New Year’s Eve Hollstein fic that builds on the emotional conflict Season 2 left us with. This story also assumes some knowledge of Carmilla and Laura’s recent twitter activity.  
>    
>  I poke fun at Christianity quite a bit (especially the Roman Catholic Church), but since I bet the majority of my readers are queer girls, I doubt it’ll be an issue, hihihi… If it’s not your cup of tea, please move along. Otherwise: enjoy! 

The last day of 2015 stumbles into their subterranean sanctuary with a lack of fanfare and commotion that Carmilla silently thanks the heavens for.

Not that she’s a huge fan of the unfailing monotony of the last few weeks. The brief escapade into her recent past via VHS was – in retrospect – a welcome reprieve from watching Laura grind down her emotional insides until there was nothing left but a shell of the girl she knew, or from witnessing the slow descent into madness of Danger Prone Daphne in the corner. But, exempting the run-ins with Devil’s Snare, Indominus Rex, and militant Lilliputians, at least the last few weeks have been calm. Compared to repeated near-death experiences, monotony is predictable. Quiet. Almost quaint.

She’ll survive not celebrating New Year’s Eve for one year.

Unfortunately, it seems she’s the only one.

“Come on, the Library has _got_ to have some fireworks stashed somewhere. Don’t tell me cooking up a pork and sauerkraut feast, Dutch owly-bowl-een – ”

“ _Oliebollen_ ,” Carmilla corrects under her breath.

“ – and freakin’ Moët champagne are fine, but hold your horses – fireworks are a step too far!” Laura exclaims, ignoring the interruption and pacing around the tiny cavern throwing pointed looks at the walls.

She supposes it’s a good sign – Laura excited about something. A woman on a mission, even if it is for something as trivial as fireworks. With all that’s happened, a little hope and purpose isn’t something to scoff at.

Still, she’ll settle for the food.

“Self-preservation,” Carmilla says simply. “Where would we even set them off? We’d light the whole place on fire.”

“Nah, not with my expertise,” LaFontaine pipes up from the opposite side of the room as they amble in, dropping another bottle of champagne by their growing stash. “Aerial fireworks are off the menu, clearly, but trust me, ground-level fireworks can be – wait for it – a real _blast_.”

Carmilla groans and buries her face in a hand. Laura laughs.

At least _that’s_ a good sound.

She looks up between her fingers and smiles.

Unfortunately, Laura looks down at the same moment, their gazes meet, and Carmilla quickly ducks back behind T.S. Eliot’s _Four Quartets_.

“Oh! Maybe they’re stashed in the _other_ secret passage!” LaFontaine exclaims suddenly, grabs their coat, and races from the room. Laura snorts in amusement, grabs another _oliebol_ , and ambles over to where Carmilla is curled up with the book.

“What are they on about?” Carmilla asks without looking up.

Laura plops down next to her, her knee resting lightly against her own. Carmilla’s eyes flick briefly to it, but she doesn’t comment, and turns to the next page – only to forget what she was reading.

“Don’t know,” Laura replies, chewing profusely. “They’ve been exploring a lot though, listening to the whispers of the walls or something.” She shrugs dismissively.

“Fascinating.”

Silence falls, broken only by the perpetual sound of distant scuffling and grinding of stones. The sound of the walls changing, LaFointaine had explained. Like Hogwarts, Laura had helpfully elaborated.

A few weeks ago, Carmilla would have rolled her eyes. But since the recent altercation with a patch of Devil’s Snare, she’s got to give the children’s literature some respect. Albeit begrudgingly.

“Owly-ball?” Laura says suddenly, offering one of the shapeless lumps of deep-fried, sugar-dusted dough balls.

“I’ll pass,” she replies with a grimace. Laura shrugs and gazes out to space, munching on the diabetes bait.

Carmilla’s eyes are trained to recognize her gazes lately. There’s the _I killed him_ gaze, featuring the hollowed eyes shimmering with ghosts of sacrifice. There’s the _how are we gonna get out of this mess?_ look – mostly a frown with a hint of panic in the set of her nostrils. And there’s the _I miss you_ look, the one that Carmilla swears sets her own quiet heart racing. For Carmilla, it’s the worst one, because holding it feels like crumbling under the weight of Laura’s regret and succumbing to forgiveness.

She doesn’t think either of them are quite ready for that.

But this gaze is new; it is calm and free and a little bemused. If Carmilla hadn’t been witness to the other variations, she’d almost say Laura looked… happy.

“These are surprisingly tasty,” Laura says suddenly, turning an _oliebol_ in her hand. Her fingers are dusted white.

“Because you drown them in powdered sugar,” Carmilla points out, flicking some off her knee. So much for black pants.

“Whatever, it’s tradition,” Laura counters, and takes another bite. This time her lips come back completely besprinkled.

“Tradition, huh?” she jokes, pulled along by Laura’s surprising, easy smile. Lately, her smiles are far too volatile and rare to risk losing to the heavy-hearted girl she’s been playing doppelganger with. “Exactly what part of this whole mess do you consider ‘traditional’? Being stuck in a near-spectral subterranean sanctum, eating junk food from countries you haven’t even _been_ to, or, you know, most obviously, having an _odd_ number of romantically-uninvolved party-goers? Not the best conditions when the ball drops…”

Laura looks up in surprise.

Carmilla’s not sure why she says the last, but she can’t deny that it’s been on her mind today. When it looked like the day would go uncelebrated, she’d dismissed it without a second thought. But with the champagne piling up, LaFontaine intermittently tweaking the satellite signal for maximum reception of the Times Square New Year’s Eve Special, and the search for fireworks in full effect, it looks like she’ll need to bury her anti-celebratory sentiment – and she and Laura will end up watching one million revelers kiss as the year turns.

Laura takes a calculated bite of the _oliebol_. “Hadn’t really thought about it.”

Carmilla knows from the way Laura refuses to meet her eyes that that’s a lie.

“Mmhmm,” Carmilla hums skeptically.

Laura clears her throat carefully. “Not a fan of _that_ tradition?” she asks, voice uncharacteristically even.

“Impartial.”

Laura studies her from the corner of her eyes. The warm _oliebol_ is melting the powdered sugar into clumps on her fingers. “You must have had plenty of people to kiss at midnight over the years…”

“Not really,” she grunts, tracing her fingers over the white dust on her pants.

The skeptical look Laura shoots her is not unexpected. She laughs lightly.

“Okay, I suppose I've had more New Year’s Eve kisses than most. But after a century or so, the years started to blend together.”

“So you stopped finding someone to kiss at midnight?”

She smirks. “I didn't say that.”

“Oh.”

She rests an elbow on her knee and runs a hand through her bangs. “Every New Year’s Eve just felt like… like another sunset, you know? Something nice to share with someone in the beginning, but once you’ve seen a few – or more than a few, in my case – the novelty begins to wear off.” She shrugs. “Midnight kisses start to mean less.”

There’s a beat. Carmilla thinks it might be caused by Laura’s heart skipping a beat, right before she says tentatively: “Maybe you just haven’t shared one with the right person yet.”

Carmilla glances sideways, catching Laura’s gaze. She knows what she’ll see there, but still her stomach clenches at the tremulous _I miss you_ she sees. Her mind jumps forward three hours, and her eyes flick down to Laura’s lips.

In moments like these, the few inches between them feel like a thousand leagues that neither of them dare to cross.

They both look away hastily.

The knowledge that in all likelihood tonight will be no different sits heavy between them.

“In any case, forgive me if I don’t share your enthusiasm for _tradition_ ,” Carmilla says finally, scratching the powdered sugar off completely.

Laura shifts and clears her throat again before digging into the _oliebol_ with renewed vigor. Carmilla side-eyes her with a vague look of distaste. “Especially the Dutch one.”

“Don’t be a grump,” Laura says, flicking powder at her. “Christmas wasn’t exactly festive, what with the whole Gulliver’s travels debacle. And at least we’ll have TV for a night! Good food, good champagne, good – well, at least _some_ company, even if the quality is devalued by the insistent brooding and overuse of sarcasm.”

“Alright, alright,” Carmilla concedes, swiping her finger through the powdered sugar on the nearby plate and licking it off – a gesture of good faith. Laura smiles. Carmilla sighs internally that the brief moment of doubt seems to have passed with no lingering effects on Laura’s mood. “For the sake of tradition then: do you have any New Year’s resolutions?”

Laura’s features tighten instantly, a suddenly skittish look flitting across her face, and Carmilla raises a curious eyebrow.

Perhaps she spoke too soon about Ms. Happy-Go-Lucky.

“Ah, you know,” Laura says carefully, waving the _oliebol_ with an air of nonchalance that falls flat but unfortunately still showers them both with powdered sugar. “Eat less processed food, jog daily, the usual.”

Her eyebrow rises another inch, curiosity turning to skepticism. “Really.”

“Mmm-hmm,” Laura hums – an octave too high.

“You’re gripping that _oliebol_ awfully tight.”

“Oh. Well. It’s my last chance, isn’t it?” she stammers.

She tilts her head fondly, taking in the way the girl’s cheeks have blossomed pink. “Laura…”

“What?” she demands sharply. The powdered sugar on her chin makes the challenge fall completely flat, and Carmilla subdues a snort of laughter.

“After all we’ve been through, you can’t possibly expect me to believe that your resolutions for next year revolve around sugar intake and caloric balance...”

Her voice trails off to a purr – a proven Laura-method, if Carmilla ever had one.

Laura jerks away from her and snaps: “Fine, don’t believe me. I don’t care.”

Carmilla pulls back, startled and a little stung.

Luckily, Laura deflates almost instantly. She scrubs at the sugar on her chin and bites her lip. “I – I don’t have any, okay? Let’s just… let’s leave it at that.”

Carmilla studies her thoughtfully – the downcast eyes, the clenched jaw, the nervously bouncing knee…

“Okay,” she answers simply, rigidly settling back against the pillow propped behind her. She can feel Laura looking at her, but she keeps her eyes trained resolutely on the book.

Things aren’t the same between them, but amidst all the doubt and uncertainty and fragile hope, something heavy has fallen away. Armor, fear, juvenile games, those pink goggles – Carmilla can’t quite put her finger on it. But there is an understanding between them that has been a long time coming. It isn’t forgiveness or submission or even the kind of love she used to think would heal, but it is an acknowledgement of the weight of what they’ve shared. And it gives them days where they’re nothing but beacons of truth around each other, days that make her think that that talk they promised each other isn’t far off.

But clearly, today is not one of those days.

Luckily, they’re both spared an awkward silence when LaFontaine runs back into the room, face as red as a chili pepper and sputtering as though they swallowed one.

“Holy crap – you will never believe – what I just found…”

“With all the weird crap we’ve seen, that’s unlikely,” Laura says as she gets tentatively to her feet. “Can it kill us?”

Carmilla smirks as she puts the book aside – Laura’s learning.

“Highly improbable.”

Laura’s look of alarm turns to relief before flickering back. “Do _we_ have to kill _it_?”

“Its,” LaFontaine corrects. “Multiple of it. _Them_.”

Laura groans. “Please don’t tell me we have to kill _them_ – whatever they are. The decapitation of the Lilliputians was scarring enough.”

“I think the word you were looking for was _satisfying,_ ” Carmilla says. Laura side-eyes her.

LaFontaine waves their hands animatedly. “No, no killing. Just… God, so awesome.”

“That narrows it down,” Carmilla says sarcastically.

Laura waits for elaboration, eyes wide and hands frozen mid-air. “Okay, what the frilly hell did you find?” she finally blurts.

LaFontaine grins brilliantly. “I better just show you. Grab your coats,” they command, and sprint from the room.

Laura looks at Carmilla with a bemused but amused smile, briefly snappish mood forgotten. She makes a dash for their coats thrown in the corner of the room, courtesy of a back panel-free wardrobe the library provided (and that demanded excruciating effort on Carmilla’s part to keep Laura from exploring) and grabs Carmilla’s hand.

“Up!”

Carmilla lets out a half-hearted, long-suffering groan but puts up no resistance. She feels a pang of confused guilt at the way such a simple thing as Laura’s hand in hers can wipe away all reservations and make her ache with memories.

She doesn’t think she’s the only one, because although she starts shivering only minutes into their trek, Laura holds onto her hand until well into the tunnels.

When she finally lets go to add a few very necessary layers to her festive attire, the dark hallways feel infinitely colder.

Carmilla flexes her fingers and looks after Laura as she bounces off after LaFontaine.

It seems she’s adopted that _I miss you_ look herself.

“So remember that hidden tunnel I found the other day?” LaFontaine says cheerfully, snapping Carmilla out of her ruminations. “The one that opened when I whistled ‘Oh Come All Ye Faithful’ backwards?”

Laura ducks under a low-hanging stalactite as the passage narrows. “How did you even – never mind, I don’t want to know. Yes, continue.”

“Well, I couldn’t prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the sound the sharply whistling winds were carrying wasn’t distant screaming, so I didn’t follow it all the way to the end. I thought maybe there’d be fireworks – it was the only place that we hadn’t looked yet.”

“Sure, fireworks at the end of the freezing, screaming tunnel. Very logical,” Carmilla mutters, pulling her wool winter cloak tighter against the chill. She has to say she appreciates the Library’s sense of fashion. On vampires, nouveau-Draculian will never go out of style.

“This is that tunnel. No screaming this time, so I thought ‘safe enough’.”

Carmilla shakes her head, wondering (not for the first time) how the asinine experimentalist is even still breathing.

They turn the corner, and the passage narrows until Carmilla, tallest, ends up walking awkwardly half hunched while Laura and LaFontaine amble without issue.

“I followed it to the end this time – ”

“Which is how much further?” Carmilla grumbles under her breath. The cold winds are turning her sentiment for this escapade from ‘uninterested’ to ‘highly disagreeable’.

“ – and though I didn’t find any fireworks…” LaFontaine’s face breaks out in a slightly deranged but equally thrilled grin. “I found something way, way cooler.”

They suddenly turn a sharp corner, and the tunnel walls explode in whirlwind of light.

A thousand tiny glimmering balls of light fall from the ceiling and jump from the ground and dance through the spacious cavern, bumping and bouncing and twirling in what looks like something between a dance of glowing dust motes and an elvish territorial warning display. The cave pulsates and flickers with light as the balls dim and brighten to a rhythm only they can hear.

Laura’s jaw drops open at the sight. Carmilla narrows her eyes, honing in on a close by light that ducks and tumbles across the cavern entrance.

Vaguely humanoid. Small feet, hands. Sharp little teeth offset with enormous eyes that glow as brightly as the twined wings fluttering so fast they’re nothing more than a blur of neon light.

“Faeries?” she asks incredulously.

“Ssshh,” LaFontaine says quickly. _“Pixies._ The faerie race is somewhat of a rivalling tribe…”

The pandemonium ebbs slowly until the pixies form a fluid, fragmented wall of brilliant light, studying the three of them as they study them right back.

“These creepy things speak?” Carmilla asks, eyes flicking from miniature awed gaze to awed gaze.

“And they _listen_ ,” LaFontaine says, tilting their head pointedly.

Carmilla raises an unimpressed eyebrow, but Laura’s eyes shoot open.

“Oh!” She waves a hand with an air of cheerful informality and sticks it out towards the closest ball of light. “Hi.”

Instantly, the undulating wall of lights retreats a few paces, clustering protectively around LaFontaine. LaFontaine grins sheepishly.

“They’re a little shy, and apparently very set on social propriety. I’ve been chosen as the representative for our species, so they’ll only speak to me.”

“Or they see you as the royal courier and _we_ ’re actually the VIPs,” Carmilla suggests with a smirk. LaFontaine’s face falls instantly.

“Stop that,” Laura says. “What did they say?”

“And in what the hell kind of _language?”_ She strains to listen. “Bells?”

Laura bats Carmilla’s arm. “Social propriety.”

LaFontaine shoots Carmilla a look of distrust and dislike. “Well, we got to talking about the customs of our species – you know, greetings, observances, moral stance on interspecies reproduction, the like – and it turns out they also celebrate New Year’s Eve!”

“Of course they do…” Carmilla mutters unhappily.

“And get this – they have fireworks! Or at least – a Festival of Lights that, if I’m translating correctly, comes pretty darn close to humanity’s penchant for festive pyrotechnics and light shows.”

“Peachy.”

“It’s supposed to be the event of the year.”

Carmilla throws up two thumbs with mock interest, then jerks one over her shoulder. “Great, let’s steal the fireworks and get on with it.”

“Carmilla!” Laura exclaims, just as a rustle of unrest sweeps through the pixies.

“Told you they listen,” LaFontaine says with a shrug as the pixie on their shoulder gesticulates angrily.

Laura slides closer, takes Carmilla’s arm, and smiles sweetly at the glowing cavern. “She was kidding. She’s such a kidder, so funny, you wouldn’t believe the things she comes up with.” She lets out a breezy laugh.

Carmilla seriously hopes the pixies are halfway gullible, because she’s never seen a laugh so fake.

Apparently, they are, because the storm dies down like turning the dimmer on a mood light.

Laura sighs in relief.

Carmilla’s honestly still contemplating theft, but she keeps it to herself.

“So we’ve got allies just as festive as we are for tonight?” Laura asks carefully.

“Looks like it,” LaFontaine says.

Carmilla groans internally.

Laura looks around the spacious cavern again, and Carmilla follows her eyes. Next to the flying vanguard, thousands of lights shine in little clusters across the rugged floor like a sea of miniature hearths. Every half a second, a lone pixie zooms across the space to resettle in a different corner, trailed by a streak of golden light. The cave practically buzzes with light.

The clustered living may marginally intensify the initial wow effect, but even Carmilla can see such close quarters cannot be sustainable. Or comfortable.

She knows all about close quarters.

“Why are they all in _here_ though?” Laura asks as though she read her mind.

LaFontaine frowns seriously. “That’s the thing – they’re too afraid to go home.”

The smile freezes on Laura’s face. “That doesn’t sound good.”

“Their forest is being terrorized by a creature whose name they fear to speak.”

Laura’s face falls further. “Again, doesn’t sound good.”

“This creature – a man or ghost or something, translation is tricky – sucks the light from their cities and souls until everything is pitch black.”

“Jeez…”

“Riveting,” Carmilla says drily. “Can we go back to the champagne now?”

The others ignore her. She swears one of the pixies in the corner throws her a dirty look, but on a face smaller than a dime, she can’t be sure.

“A few of the oldest pixies have even been killed by the loss of their light,” LaFontaine continues.

“That’s terrible!”

Her eyes adjusted. Yup, definitely a dirty look.

“Yes, so sad,” she says, tugging at Laura’s arm and heading toward the exit. “We’ll send them a postcard wishing them better luck in the new year. Let’s go.”

LaFontaine shakes their head. “That’s the thing – if they can’t celebrate the new year, there won’t be one for them. For any of them.”

Laura blinks. It also stops Carmilla in her tracks.

“What?”

“Their celebration is like Tinkerbell’s applause – they need it to survive, as much as they need light.”

Laura’s eyes go wide. “Oh no!”

LaFontaine nods. “Yeah.”

A pixie squeaks in somber agreement.

A beat of silence falls, broken only by LaFontaine murmuring consoling nothings at the pixies that cluster like a halo around their head.

Laura suddenly jumps a step forward, startling half the pixies and making them drop a full foot towards to ground before stabilizing midflight.

“Okay. I’ve got an idea.”

Oh God. Carmilla knows that look.

“Laura, no.”

“Hear me out.”

She presses two fingers to the bridge of her nose. “You have got to be kidding me.”

The fierce spark in Laura’s eyes tells her that she is anything _but._

“Come on! Why else would the library lead us here? She wants us to help!”

“She?” LaFontaine pipes up curiously.

Laura grins wryly. “I just had this image in my head of a wise, sweet old lady – ” Carmilla snorts, Laura shoots her a look. “ – rifling through the catalogues – “

“The _biting_ catalogues,” Carmilla interjects. “I nearly lost a finger looking for _The Brothers Karamazov_ last year.”

“ – keeping the books in order – ”

“In _cages_ would be safer – do I have to remind you of the swirling vortex of terror last semester?”

“ – and, you know, housing fugitive vampires when the need arises,” Laura finishes pointedly.

Carmilla purses her lips.

“She's got you there,” LaFontaine pipes up.

“Helpful.”

“Isn't it the least we can do for her?” Laura asks.

Carmilla scoffs. “No, the least we can do is accept the absence of a fireworks show tonight and stop bothering the Library about it.”

Laura huffs irritably. “Look, did you have something better to do?”

“Better than helping the frightened flash bangs with their lack of festivities? Umh, yeah.”

“What, hole up in our make-shift prison and wait out the new year?” Laura asks. Carmilla crosses her arms, and Laura pouts. “Come on, Carm. Please.”

It’s not just the nickname that cracks through the chill refusal; there’s a shaky, pleading note to Laura’s voice that’s unfamiliar. She’s Laura the crusader, defender of the innocent, alight with the need for justice and the urge to _do_ something, but Carmilla also sees something much more familiar. Something that’s been brewing stronger in tangent with their cabin fever as Christmas passed uncelebrated and New Year’s Eve approached: the need to escape.

She supposes risking her life fighting evil in an enchanted forest can’t be much worse than another night in the cellar with her ex when the ball drops.

She rolls her eyes and lets her arms fall by her sides.

“Alright! But if things go south, we run like hell. I’m not up for starting 2016 maimed, disfigured, or otherwise injured.”

“Thank you, thank you!” Laura exclaims. The cave fills with chime bell rejoicing and a maelstrom of light.

“How do you even understand any of that?” Carmilla asks in confusion as LaFontaine nods in reply to the dancing pixie on their shoulder.

“Now you mention it, I actually have no idea,” LaFontaine answers with an unwavering grin.

Laura smiles at an audacious pixie that has taken a perch on the top of her head. It makes her go slightly cross-eyed.

Carmilla sighs and shakes her head, annoyed but resigned.

“Do they have anything else to go on?” Laura asks when the pixies’ enthusiasm and corresponding tintinnabulation dies down. “Any idea what this light-devouring ghost-man wants?”

LaFontaine shrugs just as the pixie on their shoulder does. “I think the name says it all.”

“Do they know He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named’s _actual_ name?” Laura asks, then freezes. “Wait, it isn’t…” She looks skittishly around, before finishing in a frightened whisper: “Voldemort?

Carmilla drops her face into her hand. “Laura, as much as you may wish you were Hermione Granger, the wonderful world of Harry Potter, all its little creatures, and most especially its villains are _not real._ ”

“Devil’s Snare was very much real,” Laura points out.

Carmilla huffs noncommittally. “Coincidence.”

“Well, excuse me if I’d rather not ‘coincidentally’ run across an immortal overlord of dark magic.”

“We might still, who knows. Dive into danger with such zeal, don’t complain if you end up on a quest for seven horcruxes…”

The fact that Laura looks strangely excited at that prospect is more than a little worrying.

LaFontaine withdraws their head from a cloud full of pixies conversing in bright chimes. One swings off their ear with a surprised squeal at the quick movement. “They just told me that his name is… Saint Sylvester?”

Carmilla holds back a snort of incredulity.

“You have _got_ to be kidding me.”

 

* * *

 

“Brrrr, it’s cold,” Laura says with a shiver, pulling her scarf taut, tightening her glove-clad grip on the flashlight, and illuminating LaFontaine’s back as they lead the way on the forest path.

One brave pixie had volunteered to be their guide, leading them through the cave complexes into the night, blazing out a trail in flickers of gold and silver from LaFontaine’s shoulder, and animatedly answering all of LaFontaine’s questions the whole way. Carmilla’s glad she’s figured out how to block it out by now; she can only handle so much discourse on magical taxonomy and applied folklore before the urge to put the ‘crypt’ in cryptozoology overpowers her. Sometimes, hyperacute hearing is a curse.

Laura swings the flashlight around. Carmilla shields her eyes. “Do you see anyth – ooof!”

Hyperacute vision, however, comes in unexpectedly handy – for keeping clumsy wannabe-Joan-Watsons from faceplanting into underlit ditches reeking of toadstools, for example.

Carmilla shoots forward and catches her – two leaden armfuls full of her.

Honestly, what did she expect? She should know by now that when Laura falls, she falls _hard_.

(She shakes off the split-second realization that she’s guilty of the same thing, although in a much different way.)

She pulls Laura up until she’s marginally vertical and grumbles, “More than you, apparently…”

Laura looks up. Carmilla’s heart shoots into her throat, and she quickly lets go before the close proximity can spark another reminder of the times she’d have leaned in for a kiss.

A kiss that _tonight_ , would’ve felt a lot more significant than any other.

“Sorry,” Laura says, clearing her throat and picking her way around the ditch. “And thanks.”

Silence falls, broken only by the crunch of frost underfoot and the distant investigative hoot of an owl.

“So…” Laura starts, glancing at Carmilla from the corner of her eyes.

Carmilla wonders if she can even see her in the dark. The thought is oddly amusing; Laura keeping her eyes on her, a formless shape in the gloom, when the dimly lit path ahead has just proven itself so treacherous.

“A saint, huh?”

Carmilla nods. “Technically his name is Pope Sylvester the First, but I suppose he couldn’t resist the alliterative charm of ‘Saint Sylvester’.”

“A religious man with a dramatic flair,” Laura says with a laugh. “Did you ever meet him?”

She shakes her head. “ _Way_ before my time. As in, fourth century A.D.”

“Jeez…”

A thought hits her. “Mother – the Dean – might’ve.”

Laura’s eyes go wide. “She’s _that_ old?”

“Mmhmm,” Carmilla hums, nodding. In the dark, she sees Laura swallow thickly, heralding the slow, creeping arrival of the _how are we gonna get out of this mess?_ look.

That was _not_ Carmilla’s intention.

“Who knows?” she adds quickly. “Maybe the Dean was the famous dragon he allegedly succeeded in muzzling in Rome.”

Laura cracks a smile at that. “Dragon?”

“Yup. It was supposedly the impetus for Constantine’s conversion to Christianity.”

“How do you know all this?”

Carmilla shrugs. “Spent a few months in a Roman Catholic convent in the early 18th century.” Laura raises an incredulous eyebrow, and Carmilla clears her throat self-consciously. “There… there was a girl involved.”

Laura’s smile widens. Carmilla is glad the darkness hides her own embarrassment.

“Does Tinkerbell have any idea on how to take down a dragon-taming saint?” she throws forward.

LaFontaine looks back over their shoulder as the pixie buzzes around their head. “Not really. She says the dude tried to invoke the power of the Lord to ‘banish the hell-sprites back to the purgatory from whence they came’.”

“Sounds like a reasonable request,” Carmilla says drily.

The aforementioned hell-sprite peals a high, sharp note, and LaFontaine frowns in concentration. “He _is_ a talkative fellow though. Just… ah – just not very attentive to the pixies’ customs when it comes to communication between species.” The pixie chimes pitifully. “It didn’t go well. He started the banishing himself.”

Laura grimaces. “Well, maybe we can _talk_ him down instead of take him down,” she suggests. “Maybe he’s not so bad. He _is_ a holy man, after all…”

“He _was_. We don’t really know what’s left of him after 1700 years,” Carmilla points out.

“I’ll be sure to take some samples,” LaFontaine says with a grin.

“At least someone’s got their priorities straight,” Carmilla murmurs.

Laura’s worried frown doesn’t fade. Carmilla nudges her with an elbow. “Hey, it’s not too late to change your New Year’s resolutions… Maybe something along the lines of ‘I will stop running headlong into any danger that crosses my path’?”

Laura huffs dismissively. “I like my resolutions just fine, thanks very much.”

Carmilla smirks. Gotcha.

“Thought you didn’t have any?” Carmilla says pointedly.

Laura’s eyes widen, a deer caught in headlights. “Uh, yes, that’s what I mean.”

Carmilla snorts. Right. Like she believes _that_ for a second.

Laura glares at her suspiciously. “I don’t… _need_ any resolutions,” she says with calculation, then adds with a sigh: “They never pan out anyway.”

Her tone makes Carmilla bite back the snide remark, because it sounds like for once, Laura wishes they _would._ Whatever the mysterious resolutions are.

“Traditions like that are stupid anyway,” she says instead, waving a hand indifferently. “The traditional New Year’s are the ones you forget. I remember one year in Berlin, 1944…” A nostalgic smile creeps onto her face; Laura looks at her, listening attentively. “The bomb alarms went off and we didn't know if the midnight explosions were fireworks or the city getting leveled. We drank all the more champagne because of it, and danced in those bomb shelters like there was no tomorrow.” Her grin widens. “Turned out all the fugitives and undesirables hidden in basements and false back panels had taken the opportunity to see the stars and lit all the fireworks they could find along the way. Those are the New Years you really remember.”

“Not just another meaningless sunset,” Laura says, throwing the metaphor from earlier back at her.

Carmilla looks at her quickly, but Laura’s face gives nothing away.

“Exactly,” she says softly.

Laura swallows thickly, masking what Carmilla thinks looks awfully like disappointment.

Carmilla doesn’t have the heart to console her; it _was_ a year without midnight kissing.

“Guys, we’re getting close,” LaFontaine says suddenly, pulling them out of their silence.

Straight ahead, Carmilla sees the faint sheen of starlight falling on a glade.

“There’s a clearing up ahead.”

“That’s where he is,” LaFontaine says. The pixie on their shoulder burrows into a fold of their scarf, instantly hidden from view and throwing the path ahead back into darkness.

“So, how do we do this?” Laura asks.

“I thought this was _your_ plan,” Carmilla points out.

Laura swallows tensely but follows it up with a determined nod. “We try talking first.”

Carmilla unsuccessfully subdues a snort of disbelief. Laura turns to her seriously.

“No blasphemy from you, okay? And maybe not mention the whole vampire thing.”

“Or the gay thing,” LaFontaine points out.

“Whatever.” She flicks a piece of lint off her cape. “You two knock yourself out chatting him up.”

Laura nods firmly again, links arms with LaFontaine, and together they trudge toward the dell while Carmilla trails behind.

The clearing is little more than a gap in the dense canopy, barely discernable from the path, but as soon as they enter it, Carmilla knows it most definitely is the place. The sounds of the forest fall away instantly, and the chill in the air bites at her fingers like ghosts of the pixies murdered here.

Laura and LaFontaine feel it too, because the duo-unit slows their militant march to a cautious crawl.

“Hello?” Laura calls, creeping forward with the flashlight. “Your… eminence?”

There’s no response.

“Your godliness?” LaFontaine tries instead.

An owl hoots in the distance, then, nothing.

“How do you call a pope?” Laura whispers.

Carmilla rolls her eyes, takes a breath and recites in a bored voice: “ _Vicarius Iesu Christi, Summus Pontifex Ecclesiae Universalis, servus servorum Dei, Dominus Apostolicus e Santissimo Padre_.”

Instantly, a voice booms from the darkness to their left. “Ah, a true disciple!”

LaFontaine and Laura jump in surprise and spin around. A spectral face materializes from the darkness as their flashlights aim true.

“Holy cr – uhm, holy greetings!” Laura stammers.

“And a very pious new year,” LaFontaine adds.

Carmilla shakes her head.

“And to you also,” Sylvester replies solemnly. His eyes linger on Carmilla with some interest. “You know my titles. I have not heard them spoken for many years.”

“Glad to be of service, your holiness,” Carmilla says with a flourish and a bow.

His appreciative smile proves her theory that sarcasm is lost on antediluvian padres.

“Is it just me, or is he shockingly well-preserved for a corpse that’s been past its ‘use by’ date since the 3rd century A.D.?” LaFontaine murmurs under their breath.

Carmilla can’t disagree, but her night vision and acute sense of smell (specifically trained for detecting bodily liquids) is picking up considerable rot. His robes hang on limp shoulders drawn in delicate lines far too angular to be anything but skin over bones. His unruly, waist-length beard rims torn, aged lips around a mouth reeking of death. The whites of his eyes are colored yellow, clashing with the macabre greenish tint of the rest of him – but matching quite charmingly with the embroidered yellow thread crisscrossing the clerical cassocks that have withstood the most critical tests of time. She hears the skittering of nameless insects between the musty layers of his black chasuble, and the lamb’s wool pallium, or papal sash, has lost its emblematic purity to a macabre collection of dark red stains, but she’d recognize a man of the highest ecclesiastical jurisdiction anywhere.

Laura clears her throat and tries a cautious bow. “Uhm, hello, sir. We are three humble travelers, and have come to pay our respects.”

The Saint raises an eyebrow, revealing a startling amount of a yellowing eye. “Have you?”

Laura tears her eyes away from the ghastly face with a grimace. “Yes, your uhm – holiness.”

“What gifts have you brought, my child?” the Saint says eagerly.

“Oh.” A beat. “Um...”

The Saint’s eyes narrow, and Carmilla sees his fist clench on the staff of his crucifix-topped crozier. Laura takes a cautious step back; Carmilla steps forward.

“We heard of your immortality, and did not think gifts were appropriate for such a curse,” she says with mock subservience. The Saint’s eyes alight with favor. Carmilla bites her lip to keep back the laugh that _she’s_ apparently the favored one.

“You have heard incorrectly. I am not immortal.”

Bingo. Good to know.

“Then you have been blessed with great longevity,” Carmilla says, laying it on thick.

Saint Sylvester laughs, a sound like sandpaper over skin. “You flatter me, child. But I have already set foot in the City of God. I glimpsed St. Peter’s gates for but a minute, before they were closed to me,” he says with a dramatic sigh of great suffering. “The dragon I defeated in Constantine’s Rome escaped, and raised me from my final rest with the intent of enslaving me to its will.” He smashes the butt of staff into the ground; Laura and LaFontaine jump. “But God’s will was mightier, and I defeated it once more. I have served Him and His flock since then, waiting patiently for the day I will be returned to His Kingdom.”

Carmilla raises a skeptical eyebrow. “Serving? Doing what exactly?”

She’d definitely have heard of a putrescent pompous pope roaming the lands boasting miracles and no doubt prematurely sending sickly believers up to Abraham’s bosom by laying his necrotic, festering hands on them.

Saint Sylvester clears his throat, a sound like stones grinding. “I, well – Until recently, I was… ahem – trapped, callously imprisoned, on another plane, and kept from completing my holy mission.”

“Trapped by what?” LaFontaine asks.

The Saint’s shakes the crozier and crosses himself protectively. His jowls quiver with fury. “A most evil personage, one intent on affording me nothing but strange, foreign texts of impious profanity and heretical hogwash – anything but the Holy Bible. More than a thousand years without – ”

“Wait,” LaFontaine interrupts. Carmilla is pretty sure Saint Senescence is not used to interruptions, because he shuts his mouth with a comical clack. She swears she hears one of his rotting teeth give way with a sickening crunch as he grinds them. “This… ‘personage’ gave you books?”

Saint Sylvester swallows; Carmilla hears the broken teeth clatter against each other as they go down. She holds back a gag and nearly misses his answer.

“It gave me nothing; it _was_ books.”

“Oh my God!” LaFontaine exclaims, as Laura does the exact same.

“You shall not take the name of the Lord in vain!” the Saint bellows, rattling the crozier – and, no doubt, his drying insides.

“The Library had him trapped!” Laura continues, turning to LaFontaine with an elated flourish.

LaFontaine nods animatedly. “For hundreds of years, just like JP – until she had to hold a few more inhabitants…”

“She wanted us to stop him because she couldn’t hold him anymore!” Laura adds in a whisper – a far too loud whisper. She freezes as soon as she realizes her mistake.

Sylvester’s voice drops dangerously low, and he surveys them from under eyebrows contracted with perilous suspicion. “Stop me?”

Laura swallows audibly and shuffles a step back.

“Um, I mean, _meet_ you. Definitely meet.”

“Do you wish to vanquish me?” the Saint asks ominously.

“No, no, no vanquishing intended,” Laura stutters, stumbling backwards and hiding behind Carmilla as LaFontaine does the same.

“Many have tried…” the Saint says. “All have been damned to perdition.”

He takes a step forward and spreads his arms so his shadow widens against the backdrop of trees. Carmilla has to admire his flair for the dramatic, but there’s the case of the righteous little idiots that have taken up residence under her roomy cloak…

She rolls her eyes and puts up a placating hand. “Hold on with the damning for a moment please,” she says tiredly, throwing the halted Saint a long-suffering look: _bear with me here._ “We’ve just come to ask you to lay off the pixies.”

“Pixies?” He drops his arm to his side with a rasping clatter.

“Sunny, melodic little imps. You sucked the light from their cities and elderly citizens?” Carmilla prompts.

“Those hell-sprites! I banished them back to the purgatory fr – ”

“ – from whence they came, yeah, yeah, we know,” Carmilla finishes cantankerously.

The Saint accepts the interruption with a curt nod. “You agree with my methods?”

Carmilla shrugs. “I don’t blame you.”

Laura and LaFontaine shoot her a condemning look.

“What did they do to deserve being robbed and murdered?” Laura demands, coming out of hiding.

The Saint’s frigid gaze drops to Laura. “They are celebrating on the day of my passing!”

LaFontaine pops up as well. “Wait, you died on this day?”

“Yes! They rejoice in my death!”

“Hate to break it to ya, but they’re not the only ones,” Carmilla says. The Saint blinks. “The whole world celebrates this day.”

His mouth drops open a fraction of an inch; Carmilla hears his jaw unhinge.

“What?!”

“It’s called New Year’s Eve. _Silvester_ , in Germany. Italy: _La Notte di San Silvestro_. In Poland you exchange _Zyczenia Sylwestrowe_ – Sylvester’s wishes.”

The Saint clenches a crucifix-engraved silver flask dangling from a chain of his robes like an old lady clutching her pearls. “That’s sacrilege! I have no wishes! Only true prayer and devotion to God!”

“And clearly, unrepressed intolerance and hate for the local pixie population,” Laura points out.

“Unholy demons!” the saint exclaims irately.

Carmilla’s snort of laughter and response (“Pleased to meet you; Carmilla, lesbian vampire.”) are lost in LaFontaine’s heated reply.

“They are _not_! They are a unique race of peaceful creatures!”

“Heathens, the lot of them.”

“Hypocrites, the lot of _you_ ,” LaFontaine shoots back.

The Saint throws forward a ghastly arm, brandishing his golden scepter like a wizard’s staff.

Now that she pays attention to it, Carmilla swears the damn thing is glowing.

Carmilla shoots LaFontaine a warning look. “Maybe temper the righteous outrage, carrot-top,” she snaps. “We’re trying to have a courteous conversation here, remember?”

She and Laura share a meaningful look as the Saint lowers his crozier and the light dims.

“Yes, thank you,” he murmurs.

Seems they’ve found the pixie’s stolen light.

“But he’s upsetting the enchanted ecosystem by murdering the local fauna!” LaFontaine yells, unaware of the subtle change in the game.

“Faunus?” Saint Sylvester demands sharply. “Of Rome? The horned god of Rome? Pagans!”

LaFontaine jumps forward, ready to defend their charges (the bravest of which is still comfortably hidden in a fold of their scarf), but Carmilla is quicker.

“Alright, let’s take things down a notch. Clearly, the cultural, temporal, and – ” she looks the spectral image up and down in subtle distaste “ – metaphysical differences between us mean we’ll disagree on quite a lot.”

“I expect so,” Sylvester replies with a haughty sniff. “You three do not partake in the revels of this… Eve of the New Year, do you?” he asks suddenly.

LaFontaine and Laura share a quick look that Saint Sylvester instantly hones in on.

Carmilla sighs. Why is everything always up to her?

“No, we don’t,” she lies for them easily. For herself, it’s only marginally untruthful, after all. “We’re just here on behalf of the pixies – ahem, excuse me, the ‘unholy demons’.” The air-quotes, unsurprisingly, are lost on the reanimated corpse, and he nods coolly at her correction.

“Yes,” Laura says resolutely. “We want their light back.”

Saint Sylvester throws his nose into the air. It wobbles dangerously. “Impossible. It is God’s will.”

“Theft and murder is God’s will? Really?” LaFontaine demands. Carmilla elbows them in the ribs, and they double over with more force than she intended but not enough that she feels any inclination to apologize.

“Look,” she says with a sigh. “I don’t blame you for wanting to get on with the damning, I’m sure it would make this night a whole lot calmer… But I’m sure we can work out some kind of agreement. A trade, or a blessing, or –”

One of Sylvester’s eyeballs swivels dangerously, revealing a putrid sore crawling with maggots.

“Or a deworming cure,” Laura adds under her breath.

Saint Sylvester looks down on them from below his sagging eyelids, pondering. Thankfully, the maggots retreat.

“Tell me more about these…. Sylvester’s wishes,” he says slowly, eyes wheeling between them distrustfully.

“New Year’s resolutions?” LaFontaine asks.

Carmilla shrugs. “Not quite, but close enough.”

Laura clears her throat, her righteous ire momentarily forgotten with a peaceful reconciliation on the table – or grand theft and a running retreat if things go south. “They’re… hopes for the new year. Things you promise you will do better or different.”

“Mmm…” Sylvester hums thoughtfully. “In service to whom?”

Laura looks at LaFontaine uncertainly. “Uhm. Yourself?” she guesses.

Carmilla presses her fingers to her forehead and shakes her head. She’s been sprinkled by holy water often enough that she knows the proper answer is –

“God!” Saint Sylvester exclaims, crossing himself proudly. A bit of flesh flies off his forearm in the process. “Everything you have told me of this celebration is bordering on heresy!”

“Alright, alright, we’re sorry, we… repent, or whatever,” LaFontaine says quickly.

“Penance is meaningless without action,” Sylvester growls, skeletal fingers tightening on the scepter.

“What do you want us to _do_ then?” Carmilla demands, crossing her arms. “We were discussing a _trade_ , if I recall correctly. It’s all good and well throwing out accusations and damnations, but I don’t hear you coming up with any solutions?”

The Saint falls silent. An emaciated hand comes up to his moss-eaten beard and plucks thoughtfully as his eyes flick between the three of them. A spider flees its sanctuary and swings precariously from a silk thread anchored to Saint Sylvester’s collection of gold rings.

Finally, he speaks. The spider is flung into the dark as he points at them in turn.

“Each of you, as envoys for this cursèd race, will bear the offer for the trade equally. It is my condition.”

“Okay,” Laura says carefully, frowning. “But what’s the offer?”

“I will take your Sylvester’s wishes in exchange for the light.”

A beat of silence falls. Three pairs of eyebrows contract in confusion.

“Wait, that’s it?” LaFontaine asks. “You just want us to give up our New Year’s resolutions?”

The Saint nods briskly. “I will not have my name associated with such sacrilege. I will banish the wishes, or resolutions, as you call them, and you may have the chance to earn God’s forgiveness for your self-serving ways in the coming year.”

“I think we’ll pass on that last, but otherwise…” LaFontaine raises an eyebrow and looks at the others. “Sounds alright, right?”

“Why this?” Laura demands. “Why curse New Year’s Eve and then let the pixies celebrate anyway?”

“One night of revels by creatures already damned weighs less than a year of faithlessness in three humans with the potential to be saved. It is the lesser of two evils.”

Carmilla purses her lips to hide her amusement. She’s pretty sure the ship of her spiritual saving sailed a few centuries ago.

“And why not demand the pixies’ resolutions instead?” Laura asks.

“Pixies don’t have any because they can't think past New Year's Eve,” LaFontaine answers.

“Exactly.” The Saint nods sharply again. It causes an unsavory ripping sound that Carmilla guesses is cracking cervical cartilage.

“Alright, sounds legit,” LaFontaine says slowly, glancing at the others for dissent. “Carmilla?”

She crosses her arms and shrugs. “Fine by me.”

“Laura?”

A beat. Carmilla catches the same skittish look she saw a few hours ago, but when she catches Laura’s eyes, it’s gone.

“Okay,” she says hastily.

“The bargain is struck,” Saint Sylvester says, sticking out a hand.

All three of them look at the decomposing appendage, then at each other. No one volunteers.

Laura bows instead. The Saint retracts his hand sourly, but bows back.

“Alright. How do we do this?” LaFontaine asks.

Saint Sylvester raises himself to his full height, and with the black smock, unhealthy pallid skin, and skeletal hands, it suddenly hits Carmilla who he reminds her of: a very old Grigori Rasputin.

“Tell me your sins, child,” Sylvester says solemnly, raising two fingers in the archetypal gesture of benediction and drawing a cross in front of LaFontaine.

“Uhm, okay,” LaFontaine murmurs awkwardly, shuffling forward. “Eh… My Sylvester’s wishes are to learn Esperanto and to update my lab journal more often. All the weird we’ve had to deal with has kind of been piling up...” she adds with a sheepish grin to Carmilla and Laura.

Carmilla rolls her eyes.

Of course, scientific documentation of the supernatural horrors of the last few months – and most likely next few months – is the real priority.

The Saint clearly doesn’t understand a word LaFontaine just said, but he nods sagely nonetheless. He unscrews a silver flask and presses a finger to LaFontaine’s forehead. “ _In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti_.”

The scepter glows, and the hairs on the back of Carmilla’s neck stand on end. Suddenly, the darkness of the night is shattered by a blinding burst of light that travels from the fingerprint of holy water on LaFontaine’s forehead straight to the scepter.

LaFontaine staggers back, eyes dull and unseeing before refocusing on the deathly form in front of them.

“What… what just happened?” they ask slowly.

Laura’s eyes go wide, looking between LaFontaine’s utterly confused expression and the Saint’s slowly dimming crozier. “Wait a minute, you’re actually _taking_ our resolutions?”

The Saint nods, and Laura’s stunned expression turns to one of alarm. “I thought we were just supposed to promise to repent or something!”

“By God’s power, I offer freedom from temptation,” the Saint answers simply. “Do you oppose it?”

Laura bites her lip uncertainly. “LaF?”

LaFontaine shrugs. “I feel fine. Don’t remember what I wanted to do better this year, but I’m good.”

Laura swallows and fidgets with the flashlight, sending the beam skittering over the Saint’s robes, but stays silent. Carmilla keeps her eyes on her, wondering at the sudden dread she sees on her face.

But then the Saint turns to her, and she has to look away.

“What did you resolve in your selfishness?”

“Nothing,” Carmilla answers flatly. “I don’t celebrate New Year’s, and I didn’t have any resolutions.”

Sylvester nods, barely hiding his delight. “I knew in the first moment you were one of God’s flock,” he says in a conspiratorial whisper. “There may be hope for you yet, child.”

What with the gay, the murder, and the vampirism, she highly doubts it. She subdues a snort of laughter at the thought.

He blesses her. She waits with bated breath for the holy water, but thankfully, he skips the banishing; the flask remains closed and the scepter doesn’t glow.

He turns to Laura.

“What do you confess?”

A beat. Carmilla frowns.

“N-nothing,” Laura splutters. “I don’t have any resolutions either.”

The Saint narrows his eyes. The oppressive silence of the forest echoes loudly, and Carmilla tenses.

“It is antichrist to lie,” Sylvester murmurs softly.

Laura gulps audibly and takes a small step backward.

Saint Sylvester follows it with a larger step of his own.

“I’m – I’m not lying,” she says, retreating.

The crozier glows, a light as damning as Sylvester’s voice. “Repent, child, or forsake your chance at redemption.”

Laura’s eyes are wide as saucers, reflecting tiny images of the Saint’s looming face as he slowly advances.

“I – I – ” She slows, her tiny steps no match for the Saint’s long stride, and her knuckles go white on the flashlight.

“Laura…” Carmilla murmurs, shooting her a look of true alarm.

Laura’s pleading eyes catch hers, and Carmilla sees instantly that the battle is lost.

The Saint’s face hardens in the hollow light. “May God’s judgment be swift, true, and without mercy.”

The crozier slashes through the chill air as fast as the lightning that races across it. Laura barely has time to cry in surprise before it catches her on the cheek with a piercing smack that knocks her to the ground and sets Carmilla’s throat aflame with a silent scream.

The staff whirls around, and the Saint swings it overhead, straight at Laura’s cowering form.

Carmilla’s movement is split-second, a blur. She slams her hand up, catching the staff with a force that reverberates through her shoulder and sends her sliding back a couple of inches on the slick forest floor. Laura gawks at the shaking junction of flesh and wood, bare inches from where she cowers, clutching her cheek.

“God in Heaven!” Saint Sylvester cries, retracting the staff with a dexterity his decaying body does not warrant.

Carmilla tightens her grip, and Sylvester jolts at the resistance.

“How?” he demands, his yellow eyes wide.

“You’re not the only one who cheated death,” Carmilla replies, and with a quick jerk, pulls the Saint within range, slaps her free hand on the staff, and snaps it in two over her knee. The Saint gasps in alarm and LaFontaine and Laura shield their eyes as a thousand blinding rivulets of light rush from the splintered crucifix and explode in every direction of the silent trees.

When the light dims, the Saint looks down in utter disbelief at Carmilla’s hand protruding from his chest.

“Daughter of Judas!” he groans. He grabs her throat with two grisly hands, clamping down with a grip as sharp as bone. Her free hand pulls on his wrist, trying to wrench free. She gags when all she accomplishes is sliding his skin up his arm like rolling up a sleeve of flesh.

“Why, child?” Saint Sylvester weeps. “This betrayal?”

Tendons rip and slip between her fingers as she claws her way through the putrid, rotting flesh of his chest, higher, higher, higher…

She finds her prize, and her fingers lock around it. Saint Sylvester gasps and lets go.

“God’s will,” she snaps, and crushes his heart in her hand.

Saint Sylvester’s eyes roll back, revealing the maggot-infested ulcers before they drop fully back into his skull with a sickening plop. The angular lines of his frame soften and mold as the flesh melts off his bones and he sags to the ground with a sound and smell like a marshland waterfall.

Carmilla grimaces at the ten second time lapse of a millennium of decay. Soon, there is nothing left of Saint Sylvester but a lightly bubbling sludge oozing from between the ruined robes crumpled on the forest floor.

And of course, the muck still dripping like molasses from Carmilla’s outstretched hands. She shakes them with revulsion – and without effect.

“Oh my God,” Laura murmurs.

A second of silence falls. Then –

“That could have gone better.”

She’s not sure what does it – her tone, her words, or just the insufferably naïve speaker herself – but something snaps inside her sharper than the staff she destroyed not one minute earlier.

“Gone better?” she snaps, spinning around. “ _Gone better_?” Laura blinks and her eyes widen in shock. “You’re lucky the guy’s heart was in the anatomically correct place or he’d have ripped my throat out while I played hot-potato with his liver!”

Laura opens and closes her mouth haltingly, gulping air like a beached fish.

“What were you thinking?” Carmilla demands, shaking her hands viciously and sending drops of Saint flying through the air. “You could have been killed! _Again_! For some stupid pixies!”

“I – ”

“ _You_ were the one so dead-set on helping them,” she interrupts, building her words on the adrenaline of the fight that’s indiscernible from the fury coursing through her, “and for _once_ , we’re given means that justify the ends, and you decide to _lie_?”

“How was I supposed to know he had some supernatural polygraph power?” Laura demands, rising to Carmilla’s challenge.

Carmilla guffaws in disbelief. She didn’t think ‘missing the point’ could be brought to such heights.

“Why didn’t you just tell him the truth!?”

“I didn’t know he was going to actually _take_ them!”

“What does it matter!?” she demands, flexing her fingers into fists. The sacrosanct slime slides stickily between them, and her rage grows. “They’re just New Years resolutions!”

“He had no right to them!”

Her hands shake with fury. She can’t believe they’re back here.

“He had no right to your life either, but you offered him that quickly enough!”

Laura shakes just as hard, jaw tight and eyes shimmering with rage. “That is _not_ fair.”

“Fair?!” she yells back. “Are you – “

Her quivering fists stick closed.

“ – Oh, for Christ’s sake, can someone please find me a towel or a river or something! Pope Pecksniffian is still dripping from my fingertips!”

“Uhm, maybe the pixies – ” LaFontaine mumbles awkwardly, then dashes from the clearing like the hounds of hell are on their heels.

“Here,” Laura snaps, stomping over from the Saint’s melted corpse and unscrewing the cap of the Sylvester’s silver flask with venom.

Carmilla’s eyes go wide. “Laura, no! That’s – ”

Laura upends the flask over her extended hands.

“ – holy water!”

Her answer is lost in a cry of excruciating pain as the liquid burns like acid into slime of Saint and skin of vampire alike.

“Ow, ow, ow,”she moans, tears springing into her eyes.

“No, no, no!” Laura stammers at the same time, rushing forward just as Carmilla staggers back, stumbles, and lands hard on her back.

“I didn’t mean – I didn’t know – oh God,” Laura cries, dropping to a knee and fluttering uncertainly around Carmilla’s outstretched hands.

“Jesus Christ,” Carmilla groans, stomach turning at the smell of scalded skin – _her_ skin.

“I’m so – oh God – I’m so sorry…”

“What did I say about getting disfigured for the New Year?” Carmilla says between gritted teeth, fighting hard against the pain.

Laura springs into action. She pulls her scarf from her neck, rolls it into a make-shift bandage, and presses it into Carmilla’s palms. The fabric hurts like hell against her fingers, but the withdrawal of the holy acid burning holes in her skin is a wholly welcome change.

Carmilla watches as her upturned palms go from bare to the bone to second degree to mere blisters. Slowly, the flush and sting fade.

She sighs in tentative relief.

The pain sobers her, grounds her – in this case literally. She sits up and drops her head with poorly disguised irritation.

“Goddamnit…” she mutters.

“I’m _so_ sorry. I swear I didn’t mean to,” Laura says softly.

Carmilla sighs and looks up, catching Laura’s deeply apologetic gaze.

She swears she means to snap. Yell some more. Point out intentions mean less than nothing in the end. Anything that satisfies the lingering rage still smoldering under her slowly healing skin.

But instead, what comes out is a rushed, barely intelligible: “Please tell me you’re alright?”

Laura’s eyes widen under her worried frown. There’s a deep gash on her cheek, and Carmilla swallows thickly as the movement sends a rivulet of blood down her face.

But Laura’s lips quirk with the ghost of a smile.

“…You were just nearly throttled, speared by a ferula, and melted by holy water, and you wanna know if _I’_ m okay?” she asks incredulously, scarf-turned-bandage frozen in her hand.

Carmilla holds her shocked gaze with equal surprise.

Laura purses her lips with tremulous amusement.

Carmilla shakes her head disbelievingly, and, against all odds, cracks a small smile in return.

It breaks through the thin remnant of rage masking the true emotion behind her shouts – profound concern.

Laura Hollis – still killing her.

Laura gets to her knees awkwardly, still clutching the grime-smeared scarf. “You wanna yell some more, or…?”

“Still considering it,” Carmilla grumbles softly, but the small smile as she hangs her head offsets her words.

Laura grabs her elbow and pulls her to her feet. Carmilla lightly flexes her fingers. No agony.

She glances at Laura the same moment Laura looks at her.

“Sorry,” they say in unison.

The careful smile and quickly downcast eyes that follow are equally in sync. Carmilla rolls her eyes at herself.

“I really am. Sorry, I mean,” Laura says quickly, still looking away.

Carmilla nods. “I know. Me too.” She sighs. “This adventure didn’t quite pan out the way you intended, mm?”

Laura huffs, a little bitterly. “When do they ever?”

Carmilla hums in agreement. She looks around. The sounds of the forest have returned to break the silence, and every few trees, Carmilla sees a faint foreign glow that was absent on the way over – pixie cottages, she guesses. It gives the forest a much more benevolent mood, and she can see around her without even squinting.

“How did you keep your head like that the whole time?” Laura asks as they slowly set off down the path. “He was practically eating out of your hand, and you weren’t even trying.”

She shrugs indifferently. “Side effect of unsympathetic sincerity. Plus sarcasm comes in handy. You and the redhead care too much – about the damn pixies, propriety, danger, whatever. The trick is not to.”

There’s a beat of silence as Laura looks at her, then she shakes her head with a bittersweet smile loaded with unsaid dissent: _that’s not true._

Carmilla’s heart shoots into her throat. She feels the walls falling away again, both their hearts aching for honesty, and she doesn’t shy away from it.

“I… I pick what I care about,” she concedes.

A beat.

“Like me.”

If Carmilla hadn’t been listening for it, she would’ve missed the tremor in Laura’s consciously controlled voice.

She simply nods. “Like you.”

“And you saved me. _Again_. When _I_ was the one so set on being a hero.”

Carmilla is starting to think she’ll always be around to save Laura, no matter what she tells herself. But when it comes to heroism…

She shakes her head. “It’s a lot easier to be a hero when the meager selection of things you’ve chosen to care for are the only ones you resolve to save.”

Laura nods thoughtfully, a little sadly. “You can’t save the world,” she says finally, resigned.

“Maybe you shouldn’t want to, is the point,” Carmilla says, not unkindly. “Chose what’s worth fighting for.”

Laura – eyes downcast, footfalls soft – doesn’t answer.

The distant sound of bells draws Carmilla’s attention, and she looks down the forest path. In the distance, LaFontaine, brandishing two bottles of champagne and haloed by a hundred rejoicing pixies, dances a happy circle and shouts “Happy New Year!”

Before Carmilla has a chance to reply, the sky explodes in light. They both jolt in surprise and look up.

The pixies have returned, reunited with their treasured, precious light. If she thought the creatures were bright before, it is nothing compared to now. They streak across the dark sky in a rushing wave of ecstatic jumbling, practiced twirling, and shifting colors, and drag a trail of multicolored sparks behind them that hangs in the air like in a long exposure photograph. The patterns are endlessly diverse, and stunningly beautiful. It’s more impressive than any fireworks show Carmilla has seen in her long, long life.

She’s so focused on the lights that she almost misses Laura’s sudden, quiet words.    

“I should’ve run away with you when we had the chance.”

Carmilla looks at her, startled. Laura swallows thickly, glistening eyes lifting to the lights.

“Where did that come from?”

Laura licks her lips. “I – I don’t know.”

Carmilla waits uncertainly, the silence unfolding around them until it blankets every word she grasps for.

“Laura – ”

“You know what my New Year’s resolutions are?” Laura asks suddenly, never taking her eyes off the sky.

Carmilla doesn’t. Lately, she can’t even begin to guess what in the world Laura wants. Peace at Silas – or escape. A chance at forgiveness – or only to forget. To return love lost – or to part for good.

“To be happy,” Laura says.

Of all the things Carmilla expected, this was the absolute last.

Laura sees her expression, and sighs self-deprecatingly.

“Yeah. Stupid, right?” she mutters, a note of bitterness in her voice.

She doesn’t think so, but no, she doesn’t understand.

Laura sighs. “These past few weeks, I’ve been so caught up in doing what was right, in being righteous and good, that I didn’t just sacrifice everything and everyone around me – I sacrificed any chance of being happy. Always on to the next crusade, the next evil to vanquish, waiting for that promised happy ending when good triumphs over evil…” She clenches a fist in a gesture of good-natured eagerness for fighting the good fight.

But it drops too soon, and Laura’s gaze crawls up to the sky again, intent on in the sparks that make her brown eyes glimmer gold.

“Clearly, it doesn’t work like that. Happy endings…” Her voice trails off hesitantly and she shakes her head.

“I still don’t know where I stand as far as what’s left of it my own morality goes and I know it doesn’t even begin to solve my – what’s essentially a premature existential crisis…” She swallows thickly against the high note that rises in her voice and the frustrated tears threatening to fall, and then nods with purpose. “But I don’t want to wait for it. I want to choose happiness. Whatever –”

She glances at Carmilla for the briefest moment.

“– _whoever_ – that will be.”

Silence falls, broken only by the whizz and crackle and chime of the light show above them, that, in any other moment, would have held even Carmilla mesmerized.

As it is, she has eyes only for Laura.

“Stupid, huh?” the girl asks her, expecting only agreement.

“No,” she answers softly instead. Laura looks at her in surprise. “Not stupid. A little naïve, maybe…” she teases lightly. Laura scoffs and starts to turn away, but Carmilla pulls her back – a little closer than she was. She drops the smirk and replaces it with an honest half-smile. “But in the only way I’ve come to expect from you. It’s enough that you’ll _try._ ”

Laura looks at her, eyes glistening, and Carmilla swears she can hear back her own words of comfort in the rhythmic boom and swell of the lights dancing above them: _I think it would be infinitely more tragic if you let that stop you from trying. If you let that turn you into me._

A tear spills suddenly over onto Laura’s cheek, and it breaks the moment. She looks away and wipes it away with a self-conscious sniff and a short chuckle.

“Let’s hope between taking on your ancient mother, fighting a diabolical multinational corporation, and escaping the Library of Requirement, there’ll be a chance to,” she murmurs, moving a lock of hair behind her ear.

“Well… it’s the new year _now_ ,” Carmilla points out lightly. Laura looks back up at her. “What would make you happy? Right now?”

This time, though she swallows thickly and Carmilla swears she hears her heart skip a beat, Laura doesn’t look away. The shimmering film of tears reflects the sparks painting the sky in a rainbow of light, but Carmilla can see past it, can see the answer, the same way she’s seen the _I miss you_ so many countless times before.

_Like someone cut a hole in me._

She remembers.

She knows what would make her happy. In this moment, she knows.

She lifts her hand to Laura’s face, traces the familiar cheek with her fingertips, hears the hush as everything else falls away.

Laura looks up at her, barely breathing.

She looks so, so young like this. Someone to be protected, cherished… loved.

Asking to be.

And despite the warnings she remembers oh so vividly and all the reasons she shouldn’t, Carmilla knows she wants to give her this.

She tilts Laura’s face in her hand, closes her eyes, and captures her lips in a gentle, tender kiss. Laura sighs with longing and relief, slides into Carmilla’s embrace, and kisses back like it’s the last time.

Carmilla knows it may be, but when she pulls away, the taste of Laura’s lips on her own, the warmth of her in her arms, and the smudge of a tear on her cheek make it the last thing on her mind.

“Happy –”

A loaded word. The corners of her lips turn up in a wistful, disarming smile – the first thing Laura sees when her eyes flutter open. In this moment, there is no cracking open, no tumbling out of messy hopes or maybes or somedays or –

No. There is just the smallest glimmer of hope for the happiness Laura has resolved to chase, and for Carmilla, a memory of the first New Year’s kiss in centuries that means something.

“Happy New Year, cupcake.”

Laura mouths a voiceless _thank you_ , wipes away a tear with predictable self-consciousness, and returns the bittersweet smile with a brilliance that puts the hard-won magical light painting the starry night above them to absolute shame.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I’m sure Pope Sylvester the First was actually a swell guy. Remember this dude was a resurrected corpse, not a pope…  
> Hope you enjoyed it! Holy holiday greetings, and a very pious new year to all of you! Please leave a comment, telling me what you thought or what your favorite part was! Today is my birthday, it would be the absolute best present!


End file.
